RUSSIA MONITOR MONTHLY 11/2018

Contents

Russia’s largest oil firm is looking for solutions to minimize the potential impact of new sanctions. Starting from 2019, Rosneft would want its Western clients to accept new terms of cooperation as well as to pay penalties – if they appear to be unable to pay for Russian oil supplies due to new U.S. restrictions against Russia’s energy sector.

Moscow is currently doing its utmost to prevent the Venezuelan leftist regime from collapsing as such a situation would eventually deprive the Kremlin of its key ally in the confrontation with the United States in the western hemisphere.

Russia to a large extent provides military protection to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Both republics border Afghanistan, which makes them potentially vulnerable to Islamist aggression. . Yet the threat can no longer be referred to as the one posed by the Taliban, with whom Moscow has only recently entered into cooperation.

Russia’s two largest oil firms have argued over the possibility of exporting resources from the Varandey oil terminal in the Arctic. The state-owned Rosneft and the private-held Lukoil are currently involved in a commercial partnership in the Trebs and Titov oil projects.

The hydrocarbon-rich Caspian Sea region may constitute a real chance for global oil markets, which are currently looking solutions to increase their output. Though rich in resources and easily accessible, the Caspian Sea deposits were prevented from being extracted due to the unregulated status of the coastal sea of Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran, and Azerbaijan.

Russian state authorities need to tackle an uneasy challenge of cooling down public discontent, which forces them to prevent from any further increases in prices of basic services and commodities, including gas and fuels.

Russia’s state-run gas giant Gazprom has recently increased spending on the implementation of its key projects, including Nord Stream 2 and Turkish Stream. This will eventually mean that the company’s debt is likely to deepen as the firm is no longer able to cover all investment expenditures from its own pocket, despite record gas sale revenues in Europe.

Great personal relations between Ramzan Kadyrov and Vladimir Putin seem to triumph also in business matters. The President of Chechnya announced that his government is taking over 100 percent of ownership in the company Chechenneftekhimprom, enabling the Chechens to develop independent processes of handling, extracting and selling crude oil.

Even if Russian President Vladimir Putin did not manage to hold any longer talks with his American counterpart Donald Trump during World War I centenary events in Paris, he might still consider his trip to the French capital as highly succesful.

A floating dry deck has recently sunk in the Russian city of Murmansk while holding Russia’s sole aircraft carrier aboard. The incident is thus likely to complicate the Fleet’s plans to refurbish its largest naval vessels and impede Russia’s program for a potential war with the United States.

The latest visit of the U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry to Poland shows that Poland is expected to be an important partner of the USA in terms of energy cooperation. So far, the ever-increasing alliance concerns primarily gas issues, as exemplified by LNG contracts and the two countries’ joint standpoint on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline

The latest espionage scandal may bring about more serious consequences to Moscow than all earlier similar instances, perceived as much more controversial ones. This time, the incident took place in Austria, a state that was to play a key role in the Kremlin’s strategy, aiming to change the EU policy towards Russia.

A suicide bombing in the Russian city of Arkhangelsk symbolically marked the beginning of a new era in terms of Russian terrorism. Though, due to propaganda reasons, it appears much more dangerous for the regime than all hitherto attacks carried out by Islamists.

Recent personnel reshuffles took place at three FSB regional offices while two of them, Kaliningrad and Crimea, seemed extremely important from the point of view of intelligence and counterintelligence security. The Kremlin’s latest decision aims to put an end to local criminal and political ties.

Cuba’s new President recently paid a visit to Moscow, giving the green light to the further advancement of Russian-Cuban cooperation. Over the past few years, Moscow and Havana sought to enhance their economic and energy ties while they now draw attention to developing military ties.

Russian special services have detained another person convicted of high treason. It is about a young expert of a private military think tank whose interests included the activities of Russian mercenaries. Interestingly enough, over the past few months, there emerged a couple of similar cases that had at least three aspects in common.

Vladimir Putin signed a presidential decree on adding the Republic of Buryatia and Zabaykalsky Krai to the Far Eastern Federal District. The President’s decision came amid poor results of the recent regional elections held in this part of the country. At the same time, Putin sought to stress out that the region is a top priority for the Kremlin.

Taliban delegation will attend peace talks scheduled to take place in Moscow. Yet it seems that this time, the Russian initiative will bring about better results than the two previous ones. Moscow’s diplomatic effortsclearly depicts that the Kremlin may play an increasingly important role in Afghanistan.

According to Russian information agencies, quoting sources in the country’s armaments industry, the new generation inter-continental ballistic missile Sarmat is scheduled to enter duty no sooner than in 2021. Back in May this year, President Vladimir Putin announced that the Russian army was expected to receive a weapon in 2020.

Vladimir Putin’s presence in a ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of Russia’s military intelligence services – as well as his speech – clearly indicate that the GRU should not be afraid of any purges, even in the face of a series of mishaps that have occurred over the past few months.